


Tears for Fears

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Sex, I am backstory's bitch, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Justice, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, showering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 21:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15542508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Before he met Mart Belden, Ben "Skinny" Norris went through some rough times. Now that he's in a good relationship, all that is over with, right? Not so much. Ben has to confront his past before he can truly commit to his future.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mart finds out the reasons behind some of Ben's squicks. No wonder he's angsty sometimes!

Sometimes, it’s nice to get off the farm and go into town. Mart snickers to himself--they’re been binge-watching _Bonanza_. “Going into town” is a twenty minute drive into Rocky Beach. It’s become a Saturday afternoon event. They have lunch at the same cafe where they’d talked for hours that first day, followed by a stroll along the boardwalk. When they’ve sated their yen to see and be seen, they buy snacks for movie night at home or a revival at the Swan Theater. 

Today, lunch was pleasant and they’ve just started off down the boardwalk. Mart half-turns to say something to Ben, only to realize he isn’t there. A quick check shows he’s seated on one of the nearby benches, bent over, head between his knees.

When he sits beside Ben on the bench, Ben flinches, quivering with tension. Mart isn’t sure if he’s in pain, cold, afraid of something--although there’s nothing he can see to be afraid of. The Saturday afternoon crowd is peacable enough, even the lanky biker chatting with two girls about Trixie’s age.

“What’s wrong? Food poisoning? Too much sun?”

Ben’s breath comes in short gasps. He emits a low keening sound. This kind of shutdown…mostly, Ben is cheerful and light-hearted. He hadn’t been, at first, but Mart chalked that up to him never really being part of a family before. This is something else.

He puts his arm gently around Ben’s shoulders, gathering him close, feeling helpless. Whatever’s wrong, he wants to fix it. All he can do is stroke Ben’s incongruously blond hair.

There’s a loud blast of sound and the biker streaks past on a bright orange crotch-rocket. Ben whimpers. His head jerks around to follow the fast-retreating cyclist. After a moment, he straightens up, eyes glassy.

“What was that?” Mart asks in astonishment.

“That guy,” Ben mumbles..

“The biker?” A shame-faced nod. “What about him?”

“I did a stupid thing…I went for a ride with him. I thought he was nice. He wasn’t. He had some friends. They weren’t nice either.”

Mart shudders. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “Did you report it?” Dumb question: Ben’s cringing posture is textbook avoidance. “Okay, I understand you don’t want to dwell on it, but those girls--what if he’d coaxed one of them to go for a ride?”

Ben pulls away, leans over the side of the bench and loses his lunch. From the beginning of their relationship, Ben has shied away from bottoming. (He's apologetic about it, but firm.) He's always gentle--almost excruciatingly so--supremely concerned that he may be too rough. Now Mart understands why.

There are tears on Ben’s face when he sits up again. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry, Daddy-o. I’m sorry, I’m sorry….” He keeps repeating the words as if he’s the one who’s done something wrong.

“What are you apologizing for?” Mart demands. “They hurt you, not the other way around.”

“I was stupid--”

“Why, because you thought you’d made a friend, and it backfired? Newsflash, kiddo--everybody needs friends. Okay, so you made a mistake, but now you’ve got me. And Trixie. And Jupe, although I know you guys have history--”

“He’s okay. If Jones and I can be friends, anything is possible. Would you mind…” Ben hesitates. “bringing the car around? I don’t think I’m up for the usual. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. I’ll be right back.”

‘Baby’, as they call the powder-blue hearse, is parked two blocks away and Mart hoofs it as quickly as he can. Ben is so freaked out, he probably shouldn’t be alone….

The bench is empty when Mart gets back, and a spurt of panic makes him hit the brakes. Luckily, no one is close behind him. His eyes scan frantically for Ben’s acid-green shirt. 

There…he’s talking to those two girls.

With relief, Mart eases into a parking spot. A moment later, Ben joins him. He seems calmer.

“Better?” Mart asks.

“I warned them.”

“Good.”

“Can we stop for snacks on the way home? I’m starving.” Ben looks perkier already.

Mart smiles. “Of course. We’ll grab some grub and hit the trail for the old homestead.” Ben eyes him like he’s lost his mind. That’s okay. Those old TV westerns had their drawbacks: The Cartwrights never got to enjoy Netflix and chill.

….


	2. The Invisible Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben has to confront his fears when the biker reappears.

_Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on--_ It’s Friday afternoon and one of the boutiques in the shopping district of Rocky Beach has a speaker playing old rock tunes. Ben (formerly known as “Skinny”) Norris has just gotten a haircut--his suicide-blond dye job has almost grown out--and next up on his list is a new pair of sneakers. He’s bouncing along to the classic Beatles tune when he rounds the corner and immediately ducks back the way he came.

It’s been a couple of months since the last time Ben saw the biker who’d been the cause of the worst event of his life. Meanwhile, Daddy-o has been supportive--now he understands why Ben wakes up crying sometimes, and why there are certain things he can’t bring himself to do in bed. Life has gone on just fine…but there he is again.

Okay, he’s thought about this for a long time. Like Daddy-o said, nobody is safe from this guy and his sick friends. Ben needs to step up and DO something.

He takes a deep breath and steps forward. Just as he reaches the corner, someone comes around it fast, slams into him and shrieks. The leggy redhead looks absolutely terrified, and Ben suspects he knows why. “Hey, hey,” he says soothingly, trying to stay in front of her. “It’s okay….”

She shoots him a look subtitled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He recognizes her, although it’s been a few years. “Henrietta, right? Henrietta Larson?”

“Who--oh yeah. Skinny.” She looks over her shoulder. “This isn’t a good time.”

“You mean because of Woody out there?”

_That_ gets her attention. “How did you--?”

“I went for a ride with Woody myself a while back,” he says conversationally. “Met his pals, too. Tiger and Snake--” She shudders. “--and Big Chief. How about you, did you meet Big Chief?” 

Henrietta hugs herself. “Stop, please stop,” she whispers. “It was horrible.”

“I know. But I’m not going to let him do it to anyone else if I can help it, like that girl he’s talking to now.” Ben steps around her and looks around the corner. “Oh hell!”

The pretty brunette is getting on the back of Woody’s bike.

Ben races toward them, yelling, but the biker guns the swift orange machine and zooms away. “Damn, damn, damn,” he says bitterly as Henrietta joins him. “He’s got her, and I couldn’t begin to find that place again.”

“Don’t look at me,” says Henrietta bitterly. “They dropped me off in the middle of some damn cow pasture.”

“Excuse me?”

They’re both spooked until they see the man addressing them. He’s as nondescript as a man could be; forty-ish, thinning dark hair, no memorable features--in his plain white shirt and twill slacks, he’s virtually invisible, a human chameleon. “Marlon Spivey, California State Police. Am I right in concluding that you’ve been victimized by that man? John Woodson, aka ‘Woody’?”

They exchange glances, then Ben says quietly, “I can’t speak for Ms. Larson, but I have, yes. The year before last--it’ll be two years in August.”

“And you didn’t report it?” Spivey’s tone is neutral, but Ben flushes with shame.

“No, I--” His noble resolve is caught in his throat.

“He picked me up when my car broke down,” Henrietta tells them. “I was out in the hills, my cell reception was crap, so I couldn’t get ahold of AAA or anything.”

“We’ve had several victims come forward, all from different towns along the coast. The woman who just left with Woodson is one of our investigators. She has a tracker in place and she’s wearing a wire. The idea is for him to lead us to the rest of his crew. Just arresting him won’t solve the problem.”

They’re joined by another agent who nods to Spivey. “Mobile says we’ve got a strong signal,” she tells them. 

“Thanks, Pam. This is Ms. Larson and Mr.--”

“Norris. Ben Norris.”

“Apparently they’ve also had run-ins with these perps. Ms. Larson, would you be willing to give a statement to Agent Parrish?” Henrietta looks apprehensive, but nods and accompanies Pam Parrish toward an unmarked SUV.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, eyes downcast. “I should have said something…I didn’t think about them doing it to anyone else.”

“And you wanted to forget it ever happened,” the agent suggests.

“I couldn’t forget,” he whispers. “I still have nightmares sometimes. I’m with a good guy now, he doesn’t ask scary questions, even when I’m being crazy…but I don’t want anybody else to get hurt. What do you need to know?”

“I’ll take your statement,” Spivey tells him quietly, “but we should have enough evidence to put them away with what we already have. You probably won’t need to testify.”

“I feel so guilty. I just--at the time--everything was going to hell in my life anyway, I didn’t think I was worth making a fuss over…it’s my fault. Everybody who got hurt since then is my fault.”

Spivey shakes his head. “No, it’s a pretty common reaction to trauma. It was so overwhelming that your defense mechanism defaulted to ‘La la la, I can’t hear you!’” He guides Ben over to a plain sedan. “Let’s talk about it. How did Woodson approach you?”

Ben starts talking about how he’d been out looking for work when the young biker had walked up with a smile and asked him if he knew where the Seahorse Tavern was. “And I did, because I worked there for a while, and he was friendly….”

The innocuousness Spivey has cultivated makes him easy to talk to. Ben has never discussed any of this, not even with Mart Belden. It’s too humiliating, and parts of it still make him tense remembering the pain. He struggles to recount who did what to him, to put into words what have been, until now, only terrible memories. Fighting to get the unpleasant details out, he answers the agent’s questions, all of them.

By the time they’re through, he’s exhausted. There is one positive--Spivey gets word that their task force has closed in and taken down the entire gang. Ben smiles at the news. 

Disclosing to Spivey helped, curiously. He’d never thought he’d talk about that terrifying weekend to anyone, but examining it and realizing he survived it… it’s over. It’s finally over. His tormentors won’t hurt anyone anymore.

There’s no sign of Henrietta, but Parrish is over by the SUV talking on a cell phone as he heads for the shoe store. The Beatles are singing again-- _Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right--!_

...


	3. Thriving

The tomatoes are thriving. Mart has spent most of the day in the vegetable patch, tending the four different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and they’re looking good. So are the peppers and the squash. It’s a little early to tell about the asparagus. Tomorrow, when Ben gets back from his long-overdue day off, there’s some pruning they need to do out in the groves.

He enters the dome, tired but pleased. Ben is there, and wonder of wonders, he’s brought Chinese take-out with him.

“That smells fantastic. Let me just get cleaned up, I’ll be right there.”

Ben swallows a bite of eggroll. “Need help washing your back?”

“If I do that, everything’s liable to get cold before we’re done.”

“That’s the nice thing about Chinese food,” Ben points out. “It reheats well.”

Ben is very solicitous, washing not just his back, but _everything_. Mart enjoys it, but there’s something different about Ben…. 

It isn’t like they’re never showered together before; it happens at least once a week, on average. Whoever designed and built the dome had installed a shower that’s more than ample for two people. Heck, even Trixie and Jupiter have been in there at the same time (although Mart tries not to think too hard about that; it isn’t that he doesn’t like Jupe, he does--but that’s his baby sister!).

When they’re both comfy in sweatpants, seated at the big table with big bowls of food, Mart is still trying to figure out what’s changed about his partner. “Nice haircut,” he says finally.

“Thanks. I think the last of the blond will be gone next time.” Ben had sported a peroxide blond mop when they first met, but he’s stopped touching it up and is letting his own dark hair grow out.

“Did you get your shoes?” 

“I did, _and_ I got a pair of work boots.” He looks as happy about it as any woman talking about her new Louboutins. Ben has a monthly ‘allowance’ from a trust fund that he won’t get for a few more years. That’s a good thing, because all he gets from working at Belden Farms is room and board, and Mart suspects that he’s been slipping funds to Trixie for groceries. It’s good to see him get something for himself; the trainers he’s been wandering around in are battered and were killing his feet--every time he wore them, he limped afterward.

“I guess we should save some of this for Trixie,” Mart says reluctantly as he takes a small second helping.

“Trixie won’t be home til late." Ben smiles. “I stopped by the salvage yard and made sure of it.”

“Oh, really?” Mart’s eyebrows raise as he looks as his partner, who’s nibbling delicately at a mushroom poised between his chopsticks. “Any why did you do that?”

“Because I have plans that may get a bit loud….” He leans over and whispers into Mart’s ear, and Mart blinks. He’s pretty sure he’s blushing, too.

“Umm, okay. Sure. If you want. I’m not saying I don’t think it’s a great idea--” he hastens to add. “but…that’s something new.”

Ben finishes the mushroom. “Oh, Daddy-o,” he says sadly. “So young to be so set in your ways!”

That’s a joke, because Ben is actually several years older than Mart. That’s part of it, Mart muses as they wash up the dishes. Usually, Ben seems much younger than his age, but in an angsty sort of way. This evening, he’s downright playful, and that’s not the norm.

Playful, that’s it. In the shower, he’d been less tentative than usual…practically a geisha in the way he’d caressed and pleasured his partner. And now, in the loft, in the big bed they share, he’s more uninhibited than Mart has ever seen him. It’s exciting. Ordinarily, Ben is quiet and undemanding, but tonight, he’s vocal about what he wants; he wasn’t kidding when he said things might get loud!

Mart is more than happy to go along with it. He knows Ben has had some trauma in his past, but he seems to have moved past it, the way he’s imploring Mart for more.

Things are going amazingly well, when Ben gasps, “Oh!”, sounding startled.

Mart stops, worried that he’s been too aggressive and hurt him. “What, what?”

“I forgot,” Ben says in a tone of wonder, “how much I used to enjoy this.”

“Oh, alright…so you won’t mind if I do this…? Or maybe this?” Ben sighs happily. “What about--?”

“Yes! Yes! Like that! Oh, Daddy-o, that’s sooo good!”

Afterward, they snuggling. Ben is kissing him at random, running a tanned hand the length of his thigh, the curve of his butt, a lot handsier than their usual post-coital cuddle.

“Okay, what happened today?” Mart asks finally, not because he doesn’t enjoy it; it just seems unlike his lover.

Ben searches for words for a moment, then says, “Do you remember a few months ago, when we went to town and I, uh, kind of had a meltdown? I threw up and we went home early.”

“Because of that biker.” Mart thinks, _The one who raped you. Who gave you those scars you won’t talk about._ “What about him?”

“He’s been arrested, him and the rest of his gang. The State Police busted them this afternoon!” Ben grins broadly. “They’re going away for a long, long time. They’ll never hurt anybody again.”

“Good. Let’s hope karma pays them back for everything they did to you and everybody else.”

“I’m just really glad they’re off the streets.”Ben’s smile is peaceful. That’s it. That’s the thing that’s different. It’s nice that he’s more uninhibited--Mart certainly isn’t going to complain that his partner’s sexual appetites have expanded--but seeing him truly relaxed and happy is even better.

The tomatoes aren’t the only things thriving at Belden Farms.

…


End file.
